"It’s Biological: Michelle Samour"

The exhibit explores the relationship between nature and culture, driven by multimedia artist Michelle Samour's interest in biology and botany. Beyond viewing the artwork, visitors will have the opportunity to explore the biological world with specimens, slides, microscopes, magnifying devices, and books selected by the artist.

A reception and gallery talk will take place from 5-7 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 15.

At the root of Michelle Samour’s practice is a need to understand and interact with the world through the use of structure, the accumulation of visual language within that structure, and the potential for fluctuation and change between the two. Her use of light and the suggestion of the lens - the physiological eye, a computer monitor, or a microscopic slide - become the means for seeing and examining this information.

Samour says of her work:

“My interest in taxonomy is an extension of a desire to create meaning, and as Baudrillard suggests, an exertion of power. This need for understanding and control manifests itself in my work through the use of the grid as an organizational tool, through the building of structures that preserve and display objects, and through a visual mantra of repetition as a means to accumulate information. My curiosity and inquiry is driven by the vastness of the universe and the limits of reason. To quote Immanuel Kant, “Whereas the beautiful is limited, the sublime is limitless, so that the mind in the presence of the sublime, attempting to imagine what it cannot, has pain in the failure but pleasure in contemplating the immensity of the attempt.”

This exhibit is part of Suffolk University Gallery’s annual fall series of exhibits devoted to Art + Science + Design. This is the second of two shows, following the exhibit It’s Physical: Kim Bernard.